‘You fuckin’ asshole. Didn’t nobody tell you it’s still winter.’ In summer they were out in force along Rue St Catherine. They seemed to be hitting the streets earlier each year; perhaps this one had even staked out his car, smelling money. ‘Go back to your fucking cave for another month. It’s too fuckin’ early to be out begging, yer hear.’
Massenat clutched his arm firmer around him. ‘Come on. Come on.’
Roman finally, reluctantly shifted his eyes from the tramp and Massenat lifted his arm free. Massenat was right: the tramp wasn’t the problem, it was the situation now with Donatiens and Venegas. A sense of everything, at the click of a finger, fast closing in on him.
Roman glanced towards his car, then at Funicelli. ‘What you driving these days?’
Funicelli shrugged. What was this? Not content with working out his frustrations on the tramp, now it was time for unsubtle put-downs? ‘Chevy Cavalier. Why?’
‘It’s okay, nothing.’ Roman shook his head. ‘Just a thought.’ He just couldn’t risk driving out to Venegas’s house now, regardless. His only hope was to phone Venegas to warn him.
He took his address book from his inside pocket and started looking through. His hands trembled as he turned the pages: aftermath of the run-in with the tramp, or the fact that within minutes his fate could be sealed? If they had Venegas on camera, they had enough to put Venegas away for life; the temptation to do a deal would be intense.
Roman leafed through the pages more frantically, starting to wonder now if he’d ever put Venegas’s number in his book.
EIGHT
Michel listened to the 800 waveband progress of the cars heading towards Enrique Venegas. He was in his RCMP standard issue Ford Taurus with Maury Legault as they waited on Georges Donatiens arriving at his Cote du Beaver Hall office.
Maury was busy making the point that his own divorce was worse than Michel’s, or indeed anyone else’s in the squad room, that the knives still out for him from his wife were longer and sharper. ‘You know what she told the children last week? That I used to beat her. I never hit her even once. Once when she threw a saucepan at me, I grabbed her arm to stop her throwing another, but that was it. I
Michel nodded and sympathised at the right moments, but along with most male members of his squad, he’d heard it all from Maury before and, by extension, it struck him as a sad reflection on the high failure rate of department marriages, if this was all it now came down to: bittersweet trumping. My divorce was worse than yours. And so hearing some movement at last over the 800 network came as a welcome relief.
‘Where is he?’ Michel looked at his watch: 8.16 am., when normally Donatiens was in sharply at 8.00 am. He’d found himself becoming increasingly agitated as Maury spoke, not sure if it was the worn topic, the wait for things to start happening over the radio, or Donatiens not showing yet. Surely he hadn’t gone out again to the Cartier-Ville mansion; he’d been there for a morning meeting only two days ago. Maybe he had a breakfast meeting somewhere else.
‘This guy she’s with now is a minor league hockey player. St Laurent Icebreakers or some such shit.’ Maury sneered in disbelief. ‘She tells the kids I hit her, and meanwhile she’s hooked up with a fucking hockey player. I think she’s lost the plot somewheres, been watching too many of his…’
‘Maury!’ Michel held one hand up sharply. He was about to add, ‘I need to concentrate a while,’ but at that moment the radio came alive again — so he just made a chopping motion with his raised hand.
The voices over the radio reminded Michel of the night chasing Savard. He closed his eyes for a second.
‘There he is,’ Maury commented, and Michel opened his eyes to see Donatiens’ Lexus swing into the underground car park.
‘Okay, showtime.’ Michel put on a headset with a small receiver and earpiece one side, so that he could still monitor progress with Donatiens. A mouthpiece snaked around, and he could patch in and speak by pressing a button on the receiver. But the arrangement was that he’d just listen in, unless something pressing called for his input. He’d be too busy with Donatiens.
They flashed their badges at the foyer reception guard and Michel announced, ‘We’ll be going up to the sixteenth floor. Santoine International.’ It was a statement, not a request.
The guard held up his hands, the normal signing-in procedure immediately waived. ‘Sure, sure.’ He swivelled one palm towards the elevator and forced a smile beyond his concern.
They grabbed one within seconds; no others had passed them meanwhile, so they’d wait on Donatiens coming out at the 16th floor.
Michel closed his eyes and let out a slow breath as the elevator rose, trying to ease the tension. Always the way: hours with nothing happening, then too much happening all at once. But there had been no choice but to move on both of them at the same time: once Venegas was in custody, news would travel fast and the Lacaille ranks close tight.
Chac’s voice was on 811 with Phil Reeves driving. They’d have had to wait twenty minutes to assemble an armed back-up squad at Dorchester Boulevard, the quickest option had been to pull a patrol in from Mount Royal and them meet up at the St Joseph junction.
Turning in to St Joseph, they were only three hundred yards from Venegas’s front door. Michel felt his pulse racing with anticipation.
The elevator doors opened. The corridor was quiet as they stepped out: only faint strains of activity from an office at the far end. They both looked back expectantly at the elevator light indicators.
Chac’s car was unmarked, the back up a blue and white: no point in forewarning Venegas.
The elevator to their far right pinged. Two women in their thirties conversing got off first, followed by Donatiens. The women gave Michel and Maury a brief glance, no doubt in response to their acute attention to the elevator’s occupants — then headed swiftly and primly in the opposite direction from Santoine International.
Donatiens paused after two paces, looking them over, assessing. But Michel waited another second for the women to have faded from earshot. ‘Monsieur Donatiens, Georges Donatiens. Staff-Sergeant Michel Chenouda, RCMP Criminal Intelligence.’ He flashed his badge. ‘There are some matters we’d like to discuss with you concerning the Lacailles.’
A slight flinch from Donatiens, then his eyes darted past them to his office and quickly back again.
Through Michel’s earpiece, the sound of car doors opening, closing
